Collaborative robots (co-bots) working jointly with humans are rapidly advancing, thanks to affordable sensors and computer power. It’s no wonder this sector is expected to grow and reach over $1 billion in 2020 with collaborative lightweight robots becoming the top seller in the industry in about 2 years.

Another trend we haven’t discussed — but it tends to come up again and again — is the Internet of Things. Whilst this area isn’t actually ‘new’ it is worth watching as we’re shifting away from building devices to designing services.

How friendly is your AI?

Artificial intelligence was another hot topic at the WEF with discussions on the current state of AI and debates around emotional intelligence. January saw several interesting articles about this area. On Robohub we asked ‘how friendly is your AI?’ and whether AI and humans can learn to collaborate, or are destined to compete. Researchers believe it is imperative to carefully define rewards in order to avoid costly surprises. In addition, we published an interview with New York Times reporter John Markoff about his career and views on the quickly evolving AI sector.

Robot’s podcast: 200th episode special

We couldn’t end this digest without a nod to the Robots Podcast, which celebrated its 200th episode on 22January with a look back at nearly 8 years of podcasting. Run entirely by volunteers, the podcast has featured many of the great names in robotics, including Rodney Brooks (who also appears in the celebratory 200th episode) and Alan Winfield.

In memoriam

There was also sad news at the start of the New Year with AI pioneer Marvin Minsky passing away at the age of 88. This comes after the father of robotics, Joseph F Engelberger, recently passed at 90, just one month prior. Minsky was the first to explore the use of common-sense reasoning in computer programming and paved the way for the fields we now know as AI and machine learning.